Martha Goodway is an American metallurgist, specializing in archaeometallurgy, the study of traditional techniques of mining, smelting, and working metals; and an expert in the use of metals in historical harpsichords.
Early life and education Martha Goodway was raised in Roslindale, Massachusetts. She came from a family of engineers. She graduated from Roslindale High School in 1952,Roslindale High School Yearbook, 1952. and earned a bachelor's degree in general engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1957.CEE in Focus: Alumni News (Spring 2011), Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was one of only nineteen women to earn degrees at MIT that year.Lynne Robinson, "Martha Goodway: How History is Made" Journal of Metallurgy 67(9)(2015): 1918–1920.
Career After college she became interested in conservation science, and studied with William Young at the Objects Conservation and Scientific Research Laboratory in Boston. Through Young's connections, she became a metallurgist at the Conservation Analytical Laboratory of the Smithsonian Institution. She became the first metallurgist to work full time in a U.S museum. She worked there for 41 years. In that job, she worked on such diverse historical artifacts as waterproof Greek vessels,Ivan Amato, "Researchers Swap Material Evidence in Boston" Science 258(5090)(18 December 1992): 1886. Etruscan mirrors,Martha Goodway, "Etruscan Mirrors: A Reinterpretation" in Stuart J. Fleming and Helen R. Schenck, eds., History of Technology: The Role of Metals (UPenn Museum of Archaeology 1989): 25. 18th-century wire jewelry from Germany,Paul Lee, Vignettes: Musings and Reminiscences of a Modern Renaissance Man (iUniverse 2012): 424-425. and the crankcase of the Wright Brothers' first flyer.Frank W. Gayle and Martha Goodway, "Precipitation Hardening in the First Aerospace Aluminum Alloy: The Wright Flyer Crankcase" Science 266(5187)(11 November 1994): 1015–1017. DOI: 10.1126/science.266.5187.1015 She was also consulted for comments on the restoration of the Statue of Liberty.Jonathan Waldman, Rust: The Longest War (Simon & Schuster 2015): 27.
She developed an interest in the use of metals in historical musical instruments, particularly the harpsichord,Thomas Donahue, The Harpsichord Stringing Handbook (Rowman & Littlefield 2015): 1. Martha Goodway, "Iron" in Igor Kipnis, ed., The Harpsichord and Clavichord: An Encyclopedia (Routledge 2013): 267. and co-authored a book on the subject in 1987.Martha Goodway and Jay Scott Odell, The Metallurgy of 17th- and 18th-Century Music Wire (Pendragon Press 1987).
Goodway currently holds the title Archaeometallurgist Emeritus at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute.Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute, "Past Staff | Museum Conservation Institute".
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